


Only Thing Ever Stopping Me

by leedeeloo



Category: TWRP | Tupper Ware Remix Party (Band)
Genre: Gen, origin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-13
Updated: 2018-05-17
Packaged: 2019-05-06 05:15:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 11,011
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14634857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leedeeloo/pseuds/leedeeloo
Summary: an origin type story on one Havve Hogan, with just as much murder as one would expect, but not with the victims one would expect.





	1. killer dream

God willing, he won.

He let out deep rasping breaths, tasted blood in his mouth, throat burning from exertion. Adrenaline still pumping through his veins, just enough of a twitch of guilt in his stomach as it settled in his mind that he just killed someone.

He went to wipe the sweat off his face- he must be sweating, that must’ve been a lot of effort, nevermind that he couldn’t really recall _why_ he just killed someone- but he couldn’t seem to touch his face. His hand was up, by his face, but there was no skin under his fingers. His stomach lurched in anxiety, and then plunged back down in fear as he heard a door open behind him. A cacophony pooled in, and he whipped around.

The intruder had a tall orange cone on his head, yellow bodysuit and slim, streamlined armor wrapped around his chest and limbs. The fear took a strange leap as he remembered there was now a corpse behind him, and as little as he knew about his situation, being discovered near a body sounded bad.

“Oh, Havve, there you are!” He sounded pleased to have discovered Havve. Havve, who killed… someone. He looked back to what he’d just done, as if that would help explain something, but as seemed to be the theme, he was left with far more questions than answers.

There wasn’t a body anymore.

Not a shadow, no blood, hide nor hair. Just a funny little flicker, light where he wasn’t expecting it to be.

A hand on his shoulder- no, fingertips, barely exerting pressure. Just something to get his attention.

Havve whipped around, didn’t get much of a reaction in return. He just stared into the visor, watched a lopsided smile form.

He’d seen this before. He knew what this meant. This was familiar. Not deja vu, this exactly hadn’t happened before, but similar things had. The noise, the sounds, the crowd, the all of it, wherever they were, would get to be too much for Havve. He’d excuse himself, sit alone in another room until he- Sung- came and got him when he was needed.

Havve had only seen that confused smile the first time this happened.

“C’mon,” Sung said, stepping back into the doorway.

Havve followed, kept peering back over his shoulder, certain that some specter was going to form back to life in that crowded excuse of a backroom.

* * *

 

There was no moment of sudden clarity. Everything continued to be a whirlwind, nothing really making sense, and Havve scrambled for pieces of answers when he could.

He’d become attached to Sung, which apparently wasn’t unusual. He was always in Sung’s shadow, as if he were stalking him, the prey being reasoning, some form of sense Havve could grapple with. No one seemed to find it odd that Havve was constantly at Sung’s side, scuttling alongside him, peering at the other band members, unsure of where he stood with them and vice versa.

The worst thing was driving. He couldn’t focus on anything while the vehicle moved, too many pressing things needing his attention. He always sat in the front passenger seat, intensely staring at whoever was driving.

When everyone else would sleep, he would stay up. Waiting. Trying to remember beyond just being here, that deathmatch being his earliest memory. Everyone treated him as if he had always been here, been this way, but he could not recall.

There were precious few bits he managed to drum up; for one, his sole skill seemed to be drumming.

That was about it.

When he would finally succumb to exhaustion and fall into a fretful sleep, he dreamed about being burned. Of being plunged in water so cold it made him blister, and he’d jerk awake, some phantom pain lingering underneath his skin, pushed away until it was eventually forgotten.

It was another night like that, where he popped up wide awake feeling some kind of terror. The quiet of the room, the way the light came in through the window, he just couldn’t handle it. It made his stomach churn, made him spring upwards and outside, thumping down stairs and through doors until he wasn't confined to a building anymore.

The air was just a little cooler, and it soothed him. It soothed him as much as it could reach him; none of his skin exposed, thin fabric suit encasing him, might as well have been his skin. The mask on his face warmed the air slightly as it was pulled into his nose and mouth- at least, he thought he had a nose and mouth. He hadn’t seen. He’d tugged on the mask a few times, and it held firm, so he didn’t push it.

He kicked at trash on the ground, in the quiet of the alleyway.

The quiet got deafening.

He saw something, something again. It was a flicker, light where he didn’t expect it to be. It didn’t go away, kept flickering, stabilizing and stitching together.

A humanoid form came together in front of him, static ripping through its frame like a VHS tape being sped through. As it flickered, came into being, his heart started pumping. His blood started to rush, to boil. His adrenaline spiked and he clenched his fists, knowing what he had to do.

It looked almost identical to him; the same black and white split, nothing organic looking about it. The mask on it’s face was different; Havve’s was close to his face, a gas mask, short little air filters barely further than his chin. This thing had tubes where he had the filters, coming out and looping down, around to it’s back, to some kind of air tank, maybe.

That didn’t matter.

What mattered, was that it was kill or be killed, and as much as Havve hated being where he was, he didn’t want to die.

Just before it was fully solid, really there, Havve made his way over, nice and close. The flickering stilled, and he swung his fist in a wide arc, landing the first hit before it could even comprehend it was anywhere. It stumbled back, trying to touch it’s face, trying to strike back, but Havve didn’t give it the chance. His other hand grabbed one of the tubes and pulled. Grabbed the other one, leaned back and brought his foot up, kicking it back as he yanked until the tubes were ripped from it's face, the hiss of air rushing out and filling his ears.

He let go, let it fall, and it crashed against metal garbage pails. Loud and cacophonous, the loudest thing he’d ever heard, the most beautiful music he could ever make.

It could only gasp as he stood above it. He couldn’t see its eyes, it couldn’t see his. Did he even have those? Have ears? That didn’t matter either. He raised his foot, stomped. Again and again, heard the plastic and metal of the other’s mask bend and break, saw bloodied lifeless eyes gazing up past him through the broken glass.

It started to flicker again, and he grabbed his mask, pulling it with the same ferocity as before. Ripping, tearing, something wet on his face. His throat burned as he pulled up spit in his mouth, his lips were chapped and splitting as he spit, a wicked drop on the body.

He stood there, watching it flicker and fade away, surprised at how quick it was. He kept blinking, the unfiltered air stinging his eyes, wanting to cry. Everything was blurry now too, as the body faded away completely, the drop of his spit falling and splattering to the ground.

The way back inside, back up the stairs, he held the mask close to his face. He didn’t want to stay outside anymore, the cool air hurt, he needed a mirror to fix his face in. At least now he had something to do.

Each beat of his heart, every pump of his blood, something woke up within him. Words, memories taking shape in his mind with every step he took.

Accident.

Accident, accident, accident, the word, the letters taking shape and the connotation of it, filling every corner of his brain, every fold and crevice. The burning of his skin, just under the surface now, that was the surface at one time. His throat, his lungs, the air corroding them, from fine to not in a second.

A lab coat, he remembered. Remembered the way it soaked it up, it shouldn’t have, but it kept everything close to him, next to his clothes, his skin, his skin itched and flaked. Cracked and bled. The top of the stairs, some phantom smell crept into his nostrils, certain it wasn’t really there, but he kept breathing it in. Something chemical and acidic, sterile to the point of making his eyes water. That overly clean scent repeating, skin cracked so much it ripped open, rasped against hospital sheets, the gown, bandages and the mask on his face. He could never get comfortable, not then, not now.

It made his hands quake as he brought the curved suture needle to his face, thick darning thread loaded in it. Locked in the bathroom, pushing out the sudden flood of memories with repetitive stitches. Over and over, forget again and again. His mask trapped that scent in now, pressing it to the forefront of his mind.

As much as he tried, Havve could not forget. It all felt so real, so tactile, not right but true. There was a rasping, a resistance, on his hands under the spandex, his second skin.

Something told him that wouldn’t be the only time he’d remember.

The next time the quiet came, the static fizzled, he knew it would happen again. He had to earn his memories. Murder was a strange price to pay, to see images of his almost death flash before his eyes as he drowned some imposter in a toilet, threw one off a fire escape and damn near tumbled down with it.

This real world he was pulled into became that much harder to focus on- everything became so much more, louder, brighter, harder pushes against his skin, that his concentration waned. He didn’t want to be wading in these memories, he must’ve forgotten for a reason, but they sucked him in. The second he won, the sound would rush back and so would some piece of him; it made his steps heavier, gave him a surefire presence, no longer the ghost he thought he was doomed to be.

He was finding a kind of comfort in knowing. In some kind of answers, of the life he had before timelines crossed and he was ripped, screaming and kicking, unceremoniously dumped here.

It felt a little unfair, to artificially die and then be forced into… this.

Especially when he was on the cusp of… something. He couldn’t quite figure out what, but it was etched into his mind. A new discovery after years of research, new and fresh research, and he was just at the tail end of it. This was all an accident, maybe after he was done here, he’d pop back to where he was; this was a bad dream, a coma.

Like a black box, cursed to re-live his last few minutes over and over, for his consideration, for further _research_.

He got lazy, sloppy. He wasn’t even supposed to be in the lab that day, but he was giddy, wanted to unofficially check the progress. The forefront of the project, so invested, so keen, he got the brunt of it. The air burned him, why was he making air so caustic, he couldn’t even remember what he was trying to do.

Funnily enough, he remembered his dreams. Hospitalized, in a hazy, painkiller tumble through his life. The dreams he had, he thought they were just his brain being bored, under-stimulated, now he knew better. He was seeing now, here, some premonition. A sideways glance into a parallel dimension, before they crashed together, got him all jumbled up in some mess.

It was a woozy, restless dream. Sung’s voice echoing along with impersonal beeps of hospital equipment. The mask on his face, the joining force between these worlds, pressing, not doing its job. His breaths in the dream, short and shallow. His chest was heavy, it was too real, to lifelike, too much memory mixing in.

Ripped awake with as much of a gasp as he could muster, just to feel hands wringing his throat.

Single toned, same-faced motherfucker right above him. Aside from his own pulse in his head, the room was silent.

The only thing that got his hands up to this imposter’s wrists was the pure fury of being taken advantage like this. He couldn’t grab on, could barely see. There was an infuriating clucking in his throat, no air, no nothing, bitter tears to match the defeat.

The static came across his vision, suddenly bright, and he felt his body slip away. He was light, not even there anymore as the static overtook him.

Painless.

Calm.

For once.


	2. went and lost its mind

He watched the body fade, hands still tense where it’s neck was even long after it was gone. 

Anger kept him tense, from his knuckles to shoulders. All the way down his back, his legs were cramping. Cramping, even well into the morning light. Shocked into breathing by a sudden chipper voice.

“Oh, Havve, there you are!”

Havve scrambled to turn, to make his body move again, presumably face to face with the noise. The noise-maker flinched away at Havve’s movement, but didn’t seem put off. Just turned, beckoned Havve to follow, as if this was normal. As if he was supposed to be here.

As much as he dragged his feet, glowered at his back, he could not get away. He would be found, pulled along or pushed ahead forcibly, an infuriatingly cheery smile, sing-song voice, telling Havve what to do and expecting him to listen. 

What a shit one to be pulled into, he thought. A shit one what? He didn’t give himself the chance to ponder it, not really, was too consumed with this fury, coal alight in his gut. 

The first time he was pulled over to sit on the pitiful little stool in front of a drum kit, that was the only time the anger subsided. It left a flat grey nothing, but with drum sticks pressed into his palms, something else took shape. Some thump in his dead black heart, that made his shadowy form pull away from the floor, the wall; everything about being dragged around by this.... this Doctor Sung, everything about that was shit, except for drumming. Even that had a tinge of force to it, this air of performance, like he was a trained animal, a money dancing lest it be slaughtered. 

Although.

All it took was shoving Sung into a wall one time to dissuade any fear of being forced to perform. He loomed over him, didn’t touch him beyond the initial shove, didn’t say a word, didn’t even breathe. Tilted his head back as he stepped away, saw how Sung had his hands protectively over his chest, that glowing red center, giving away his weakness like that. 

It was the tiniest modicum of power he could yank from this world, and he coveted it. Every moment he was under Sung’s thumb, he knew, they both knew, Havve could turn that on its head whenever he wanted. He had no desire to do so, but it eased something in him to know that he could.

Despite actively resisting it at every turn, Havve learned about the band. He tried to ignore the conversations, what anyone said or did, but, really, there was nothing else much to do. 

To hear Sung tell it, this was all there ever was for them. This constant travel, constant new audiences in the street, he even got ahead of himself and claimed this wasn’t the only planet. After that one, Havve hissed out a disbelieving scoff. They had barely figured out the start of space travel back home, what did this idiot in a cape and spandex know about it? Any of these idiots, for that matter.

It was far more interesting for Havve to steal a pack of matches or a lighter from the bassist- the only thing he was good for, he was too loud, too boisterous, too eager to nod along and participate in Sung’s ramblings- and light them over and over, try to pinch the flame without smothering it. Occasionally he could get his hands on a candle, a flat little tea-light, sometimes in metal, sometimes not, and he’d be transfixed. Burning scraps of paper, the opposite end of matches, dripping the wax into his hand and picking it off after it dried. 

As much as he too infuriatingly listened to the bullshit of the other two, at least Lord Phobos didn’t seem to speak. Just like Havve. He’d get absorbed in whatever Havve was doing, watching him play with the flame. It was the closest he got to bonding with any of them, these moments of quietly staring at a flame, irritation in his eyes that refused to leave.

That was how he felt after their cute little busking shows; some irritation he couldn’t shake off, so he’d leave abruptly, the rest of the group begging for cash. 

His hands kept moving, drumming in the air, fingers twitching, walking aimlessly into the alley they parked in. Drumming his fingers on the vehicle, yanking open the door, grabbing something to fidget with; a lighter, metal and refillable. He’d flick it open, flame spawning against his thigh, flipping the cap shut again. He could still hear the clamour, kept walking until it was more distant, not so overwhelming.

Reluctant to go far, he relegated himself to squatting at the other end of the alley, trying to light plants poking up through the concrete, scraps of trash. 

He looked up, dull metallic shine of a trash can staring him down. He stood, felt his foot hit the ground but there was no sound. He lifted the lid off the can, felt the metal rub against metal, could almost but not really hear the clang; it was muffled, like cotton stuffed in his ears. Paper and scraps and kindling. Everything that would burn so, so pretty.

Flicked on the lighter, held it over the open can, and dropped it in. It wasn’t his, it didn’t matter. 

The fire started slow, but smoke plumed up instantly. No crackle, just light stinging his eyes. He dropped the lid carelessly to the side, felt it hitting the ground in the soles of his feet, started bending and collected bits of trash to add. Skittishly dropped them in the the fire, used a stiffer, folded up flyer to push at it. 

Leaned over it, breathed in and the smoke was filtered out perfectly. Clean. No hiss like there usually was.

He started to stand up straight, but it was too late. He was grabbed, shoved face first into the silent crackling flame. Pushed and folded into the heat, tried to kick back but the lid was pressed and held back on. The fires swelled, and he screamed. Kicked and rattled the can as best he could, but it didn’t do him any good.

At least, not the him inside the can.

Outside of it, holding the lid down, a little gap to let air in to fuel the flames, holding the can upright, Havve was being served very well by the constant attempts for escape. It made him feel as if he was actually doing something, like he earned this victory. 

The yelling stopped, and the noise did as well. He slid the lid shut all the way, let the smoke build up, just to be sure. Waited for any last thumps and clings to life, but there were none. The sound came back like a wave washing over him, the crowd, the street, no crinkling of flames. 

Even then, he didn’t let go, didn’t move, not until he heard it. The only constant.

“Oh! Havve, there you are!” Sung’s voice at the far end of the alley, and Havve turned, took long strides towards him. Costume armor clinking, mask jostling on his face. He felt taller, more powerful than before- he had a concept of a before. 

Sung gleefully showed off their earnings to him, enough for meals for the next few days, stashed away in his thigh pouch. 

A celebratory dinner followed; take out, a little more expensive than they’d usually get. Meouch elected to wait outside, he and Havve leaning on the back bumper of the van. Havve looked back, over his shoulder and around the side of the van, into the cramped takeout place, Sung anxiously at the counter and staring into the kitchen, Phobos pacing and reading menus, touching the fake plants. Like looking into a glass fishbowl, they worked their cramped and well worn paths. 

“Can’t wait til we can get out of here,” Meouch said absently. Not really to Havve, but not just to himself, either. 

Havve turned his head towards Meouch, listening.

“Fuckin’ tired of bouncing around the same few cities, man. An’ barely getting out of the province, away from this coast. Y’know?” He looked at Havve as well, and then quickly away. He fumbled through his pockets, got a smoke, a light. Mumbled as he lit up. “It’s about time shit started looking up. You see what we pull in today?”

Havve shook his head. He’d been preoccupied. 

Meouch smiled, wild and cocky, leaned back as he took a drag. Smoke rolled out of his mouth, around his teeth, as he spoke. “I’d bet this is the last goddamn time we’re gonna have to be playin’ on the street.  We’ve got some good gigs lined up, some shit in-fuckin-doors, man.” Another drag, a half laugh. “Hope you’re more excited than you look, buddy.”

Maybe Havve smiled. It was hard to tell. 

The others came out, arms full of food, Sung chastising Meouch for smoking as he ground it out, put it in his pack for later. They shuffled and corroborated, getting all the food and all the people inside in an agreeable fashion. Phobos driving, Sung in the front passenger seat, Meouch behind him, Havve the last one to get in. He was helping pass food from Sung to Meouch, and walked around the van once everyone was shut inside, unwilling to climb over Meouch to reach his seat.

Havve jostled the handle, it wouldn’t budge. The clunk of him trying reverberated in his hand, but the sound was muffled, distant. He looked up, ready to tap on the glass, get Meouch to lean over and unlock it.

The glass was as dark as the night sky, as Havve’s suit and armor. 

The only noise was the crunching of boots on the pavement behind him. He spun around, side stepped, just in time to avoid getting hit in the back of the head, fist hitting the window and bouncing right off. 

He swung back with ferocity, fisting hitting a hard and jagged skull, a mask not unlike his own. He wasn’t really looking, just kept throwing punches. They were hitting back, he was sure, but he couldn’t feel it, sudden rage fueling him. He reached, grabbed, ripped that knock-off’s mask off, exposing a soft, human face.

A face like his.

A hook to the nose, and blood started flowing. Eyes swollen, mouth hanging open, until one final blow and they fell backwards. 

They laid on the ground, and he waited. For any motion, any fight left. The body fizzled away, like oil jumping in a pan, and the sound came back instantly, like his ears popping, painful. The blood on his hands fizzled away like hydrogen peroxide, the sensation of his fingers falling asleep but on the outside barrier of his skin. 

The car door opened, loud by contrast, and Havve whipped his shoulders around to look at it.

Meouch was leaning over the back seat, the food, van door half slid open. Sung was looking at him from shotgun.

“Dude,” Meouch said, “...you alright?”

Havve nodded, ignoring the concern in his voice, and climbed in, wiping the phantom sensation of blood off his knuckles.

* * *

 

Every single attack was the same. Jarring and sudden, less like static, more like velcro tearing open. Not a channel being flipped past, but the tubes in the screen bursting, shattering, and Havve had to fight off the shrapnel. 

It was always sudden little pocket dimensions, the sound sucked out, and, once he started paying attention, the colours all wrong. Some of them even smelled off.

Everything felt wrong. Like he wasn’t supposed to be here this long, or even at all. Every fight came on quickly, no warning, every opponent aching to catch him off guard. The strangest part, the part that made him certain this was all a fluke, was the time he managed to snag a trophy.

His memory got fuzzy, he couldn’t recall when it had been, where he had been, even how he managed to snag it. A chain, a pink chain, the round links neither a bubblegum nor a hot pink, something in the middle. Ripped from some imposters body just before he killed them, and unlike everything else, every other scrap and hint of these opponents, it stayed. He gripped it in his palm, sweaty, shaking, waiting for that carbonation feeling.

It stayed, solid, metal unyielding in his grip. He kept watch over it all night, holding it up in the moonlight, under match fire, waiting for it to inevitably leave him. By morning he figured it was his to keep, and he clipped it on to his waist belt, clanging against the bits of armour there.

No one else seemed to notice it.

No one seemed to notice when he’d pop out of this world, that he’d come back around the corner breathing head, wash his hands and wash them and wash them. He was disconnected from this place, from it’s timeline.

He developed a weird kind of routine: he’d get yanked into some fight, win, come back with a tension headache and listen in on conversations to see what was different this time. Sometimes he’s walk into a bathroom in a restaurant, drown some doppelganger in a toilet, walk out into a gas station. He’d lose sight of the band, smash a duplicates head against a wall, catch back up and their clothes would be different than they were just five minutes ago. 

They’d tell him different things each time, too. They seemed to be bound to this planet, but the scope of their travels on it varied. The relationships varied too; sometimes he’d be outcast among outcasts, and then they’d act like they’d been best friends since birth. 

One time they all acted like he was the leader, the one in charge, and he wished he’d lost the prior fight. The next one couldn’t come soon enough. 

He felt it, the way things were escalating. Less stability. Fights more frequent, the band becoming turbulent, he couldn’t remember a damn thing about himself so he’d stopped trying. 

The places he was thrown into less and less like places anything could live. Like dropping into spilled paint, some of them. Colours swirling, only the ground a fixed part, but just barely. They made him sick, dizzy, anxious to get out of them, whatever it took.

It was like the universe itself was winding up to knock him over, realizing its mistake in allowing him to even have the chance to go on this long. It threw him into more and more unstable little pocket dimensions, and he threw back, winning against the odds. 

He should’ve known it was going to be the end of him when he was flickering into something more stable than the world he lived in.

A cave, stale air rolling out, drips and echoes further in. 

Absolutely not the storage room he was heading into. 

He took a few cautious steps in, ground solid under his feet, slate rock. He was in the mouth of the cave, breeze blowing in behind him, and he ventured further in. Maybe they were waiting for him deeper inside, and he could ambush them. 

Deep enough in that he couldn’t run away, and there was a noise behind him; a noise with some impact to it, like someone had leapt off the few steps of a stoop, both feet hitting the ground. He spun around, expecting this to be more of the same

He got the first hit, their head. They landed a blow right after, knocking him back, his hand skimming them, grabbing, grabbing onto something, something metal and flat, like a plate, a panel.

They hit him exactly where he hit them, just harder, and he saw the explosion of pain as he felt it, mirroring the way his jaw shattered. 

Grip, and pull. Metal creaking, the sickening sound of flesh tearing.

There was a frantic shove, they pushed him back and away, too stupid to pry his fingers off. He felt more ripping, bolts popping up, reverberating up his arm. His backward stumble was only stopped by a rock wall, wind knocked out of him, almost vomiting as his head hit the rock, scrambling his brain.

He barely registered the hands grabbing his face, pressure at his temples. He didn’t look as he kept grabbing with one hand, other hand limp and holding something heavy and flat.

His hand landed on something hot and wet. Moving.

Th-thmp, th-thmp, fast and steady under his palm. 

Time slowed down just to let him know this was perfectly simultaneous. He dug his nails in as his attacker did, twisted his arm from the shoulder up as they pulled his head away from the wall.

Yanking a heart out of a chest just as his head was slammed against the rock, that same explosion of pain and bone as his jaw.

His vision started to go, that funny static filling it, so slow to him now that it looked like the snow of a paused tape. He looked down, just his eyes moving, to the organ in his hand. Just a piece of meat, now. At the edge of his vision, he saw them. Saw them fall back, like a cheap cardboard standee in the wind.

He was sliding down that rock wall, he was sure, leaving a gorey trail behind, no doubt. 

Maybe there was some kind of afterlife, and they’d get to meet again, on better terms. Find out why they had to to this, if they were the end of it. He hoped they were. He hoped there was an afterlife, he couldn’t remember if he’d ever believed in something like that. Or anything at all. 

Maybe he’d get to go back to a life he didn’t remember, and this great big pitiful existence was just a bad dream. 

The last thing he felt as his body faded away, was a smile spreading across his face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please tell me how i broke your heart, thank you


	3. get what you grieve

It was a fucking shitshow, is what it was.

There was a rock pressed painfully to his lower back, something pushing his arm up at an odd angle, his ankle hurt. 

Oh, and his heart was ripped out of his chest, falling to the ground as the bastard that removed it faded out of this plane of existence. If Havve could just sit up, he could stretch over to that wall, grab it, dust it off, and jam it back inside. The chest panel was a wash, all the bolts popped out and bent, but if he could just sit up, he’d have ample time to hammer them back into shape or figure something out.

Well.

He had a lot of time to figure, at the very least.

Death wasn’t a concern for Havve. Never had been. He’d solved that, luckily, before he was met with the only thing that could come close to stopping him. 

He hadn’t thought he’d be stopped by, essentially, non-fatally ripping his own heart out.

He sighed, felt it whoosh in and out of him, innards exposed and, really, the least of his problems. This little situation, his heart being out of his body, this wasn’t going to kill him. It was an annoyance, at worst. A setback.

Something coming along and making a nest in his infernally warm body wouldn’t kill him, either. Probably. Unless nest making involved tearing him in half. He was well versed in biomechanics, not animal nesting habits. A pity, that; it surely would have been useful at the moment.

He almost laughed; a wheezing rattle, making him jostle against the rocks. 

That was it, for a few hours.

He tried to cough, and that was it for a few days.

Once he got bored of watching his power slowly trickle down, he put himself into sleep mode. 

No one was rushing for the chance to finish him off, so he was going to prolong the waiting, just in case they were running late. He got himself all set up to pop back awake if someone so much as tiptoed in, just so he could have a chance of seeing who go to do it.

Just as he was slipping into unconsciousness, he wondered if anyone flying in would be loud enough. He hadn’t thought of that.

By the time anything happened, he’d long lost track of time. There were a few moments where he’d be jostled out of sleep by something not coming to kill him; though, it did kill him not being able investigate what in the world kept making those noises. 

The point was, was that it was never actually anything. He’d stay awake, waiting, listening, now assured he for sure would have heard some doppelganger flying in. He’d drift off again, wondering vaguely if they’d manage to get ahold of hovering technology, if he’d hear that in time.

That’s the thought he came back to when he popped awake once more, interior of the cave far brighter than it had ever been. 

Footsteps. A ship humming from where he came in from. The only entrance.

The bastard had managed to take a whole ship in with him! Havve had watched a pencil fizzle out of his hands before he got stuck here, and here was some double who’d managed to smuggle a whole ship past that static.

He could probably be at peace with being killed by someone like that.

He tried to look, to move his eyes in the direction of the sound, hoped that maybe now he could finally move his body. He held his breath, he was waiting for something, expecting something. Something like a memory played through his mind, but it hadn’t happened yet; footsteps until he was seen, and then, not death, but a voice. He could hear the shape of the words, not exactly what they were, but as they got closer, it became more clear. Clearer than the roof of the cave he’d been staring at for who knows how long, than designing his own body, a sound more familiar than his own voice; he was going to be seen and he would hear it: oh, Havve, there you are! In a voice he’d never heard from someone he’d never met, but it all felt like something he’d heard all his life.

The footsteps stopped. They were in front of him, looking over him, assessing the damage. Havve couldn’t wait to get out of the sticky sensation of deja vu.

“Jeez,” they sighed, “you’re in a state, huh?”

That was one way to shake that feeling off. Not that Havve had long to dwell on that, to even wonder what this meant for him, before there were hands in his chest, in the open cavity. 

It felt like he was being turned inside out. He wanted to vomit, he held his breath. Things started to warp, speed up and rewind, a horrible grating whir that he wasn’t sure was anywhere but his mind, as he felt himself drop out of his own body. 

He wasn’t there, in his body, anymore. He was just outside of it, watching. Watching this person try to fix him- and it was like he got ripped open again and he remembered- this was Sung, Doctor Sung, and this wasn’t the first time he’d seen him. Havve knew him, had made that one little thing he said a cornerstone of this cycle, whether he remembered it (and him) or not. 

And now he remembered him, and remembered all these snippets of of all these different versions of himself he’d been.

His limbs shifted, his body molded, to all these different… hims. All these slight variations and as each one took shape, he was them, if only for a moment. Being them, the confusing jumble of being torn from their lives and being spat out to almost the same universe, but those were variations on the same thing as well. 

He remembered each life, and each death. 

Remembered tearing his own heart out, the confusion, the peace, seeing himself become obscured before he even hit the ground.

It was good timing, then, that everything went dark there.

* * *

 

“--And that controls the ventilation. I’ll get into it more later, but from up here you can basically- it’s just a thermostat on the console.”

Havve looked around, not sure where he was, what was going on, why he still couldn’t stand-- and then everything came flooding back. 

Sung fixed him, made him livable again. Didn’t put his heart back in, Havve remembered looking and couldn’t find it, instead he used some machine. A steady beat was good enough, it seemed, even haphazardly attached to his circuitry. He put his hand to his chest, nodded along as Sung spoke, concentrating more on memories he didn’t remember being there for. He’d just dutifully followed Sung, not much for conversation, buckled himself into the co-pilot's seat.

Despite Sung being a chatterbox, he didn’t say much of anything. The important points were: this was his ship, he’d modified it slightly, he really was a time traveller, really, I swear, and the bedrooms were across from the bathroom. Currently, he was running through about a third of the controls on the consol, explaining what they did and-

“Oh, two things.” Havve was pulled out of his own head, looked to Sung. “One, do you already know how to fly a ship?” 

Havve really thought about it. Gripped the seatbelt, wrung it, wondered how difficult it could possibly be. He’d been pretty good at flying drones, but something told him space ships were a different beast than anything remote controlled. He shook his head.

“Okay,” Sung sighed. “Two, what’s your name? You haven’t said.” Havve went quiet for a moment, a silent uh before giving his name, which was enough to prompt Sung to ask, “or do you not have one?”

“Havve Hogan,” he said simply. His voice was low, quiet, couldn’t cut through crowds easily. A rumble that was easy to miss. He’d never been too talkative, he remembered.

Sung continued on, a little slower, about how to actually turn the thing on, what the turning radius was, how to accelerate. 

Havve found it hard to pay attention, however. 

His peripheral was cluttered. Like sleep in his eyes, refracting, yet crystal clear. Alternate versions of this moment were framing his vision- he glanced around, and they moved as well, not something he was truly seeing, but something in his mind. For the most part it was like compound vision, the interior of the ship and Sung repeated, but a handful of them would differ. Were differing. Sung would point at something, a little piece of the frame would point somewhere else. One or two, he was on the other side of Sung, their positions flipped.

Havve slipped his hand under his mask, from the side, rubbed his eye.

The same frame of… screens, almost, those same things were still there. If he thought a little harder about one of them, not exactly looked and focused on it but did just that, he could hear it as well. Sung’s spiel was largely the same, but the differing bits were so discordant Havve couldn’t stand it and had to focus back on where he actually was.

He shook his head, tried to really focus. This was important. He needed to know this, this silly vision problem could wait.

Sung was, if not the oddest companion for the universe to force onto Havve, certainly at the top of that list. The oddest aspect of him was just how long it took Havve to peg precisely how odd he was.

Havve was finally getting into his rhythm, finding a sort of cycle to when Sung would shift from bright and friendly, eager to open himself and his life the way he’d found Havve ripped open, and then suddenly break off. Cool, all affect lost, would barely tilt his head up to look in Havves direction, let alone speak much. He never really stopped being high strung, but it would take different forms; Havve kind of liked it better when he was bouncing off the walls, nattering his ear off, than when he was locked away in his room, the few times he came out like that his muscles were so tense he trembled.

It didn’t take long for Havve to fall in stride. Like it ran through his blood, they lived together long enough to just sync up.

The times Sung would, as Havve started to call it, shut off, he used it to study. The things Sung had been telling him about the ship, yes, but also that frame of his vision. Those glimpses into alternate versions of himself. These fields just happened to sync up. 

He was tinkering. Lying under the main console, opening the access panel, and the way the hinge moved started Havve’s mind running. That artificial smoothness, a little bit of added grit that almost replicated joints made of bone. Like his own joints.

It wasn’t that he suddenly remembered he was a cyborg, because he didn’t truly forget, but it was suddenly as undeniable as the fact that he had mass. It was followed by a rush of pride, glowing, the phrase ‘first ever’ popping to mind, ‘first’ bouncing around an echoing, hot and sticky joy growing in him. He didn’t hate that. 

Moving that panel back and forth to feel the motion of the hinge, he stopped. Looked at his hand. That was certainly biological. He let go of the panel, pressed his fingers into his palm. Warm, he could feel his veins pulse. He saw that same motion repeated, just a few differences. 

He scanned through them, like flicking through magazine pages, skimming. 

Differing skin colours, how far that skin went down his arm. Robotic claws instead of the first two fingers and thumb the most interesting. He turned his hand, and most moved as well; a few slower, one ahead of him, it was still hard to comprehend. 

An idle little thought passed by, just wondering what his blood looked like, he couldn’t remember. 

One of those views started getting drastically different. 

That version of himself was getting up, making his way through a near identical ship to a near identical med bay, grabbing a scalpel and making a cut on the back of his wrist and then-

It just went away. 

The deviation was too much, it verged too separately, he’d presumably need to be following a similar path. In order to see all the possibilities.

He sat up, tightened his hand into a fist, fingernails pressing into his palm. Slow, deep breaths, trying to let that sight fall away. 

It didn’t matter what he looked like on the inside. It didn’t matter, he kept telling himself. Stood, rubbed the spot where the alternate made the cut.

Didn’t matter. 

He kept pushing it out of his mind with that little sentence fragment until he could come across something that did matter. He kept hanging around Sung, waiting for him to boot back up, so he could learn something new and not be so caught up in his head anymore. 

It wasn’t something he expected.

Sung approached him finally, the only way Havve could describe it was wobbly.

“You know pretty much all there is to know about the ship,” Sung started. It really hadn’t taken long; it was a slow slog at first, but there was a point where Sung kind of brightened. Got this weird look on his face, and stopped taking so long to explain things after that. More or less handed Havve the owner’s manual, Sung’s notes on his changes in the margins, stapled onto the back cover. Havve devoured it, only came to Sung for bits of his handwriting he couldn’t make out, which was most of it. 

He was holding a similar kind of manual.

“You’re gonna need to know this, too.” He stared at his own hands as he gave it to Havve. A blank cover. He flicked through the pages, quickly enough the generate a breeze. Saw anatomical drawings.

Havve tilted his head. Sung wasn’t looking.

“What is this?” Havve asked. Sung pressed his lips together, almost pouting.

“It’s me,” he replied bluntly. “How I- my body works. In case I get sick or hurt or something. It’s just you and me, so you need to know this.” 

Havve nodded, stared at the blank front cover. “This is it?”

Sung held his breath.

“I thought you were more thorough than this.”

“That’s it, yeah. It’s pretty comprehensive.”

Havve thanked him, and studied it carefully. He liked to sit on the floor, hunched over as he read. Notebook and writing utensils nearby, notetaking and underlining, making sure everything made sense before he moved on. 

This was a little bit because he agreed with Sung, it  _ was _ important, but a little bit something else. There was some familiarity in it- the material, for some parts, but also just the studying. The way he immersed himself completely in it, the kind of peace he felt in reading and taking notes. 

Studying Sung led him to studying Sung. Field research. 

Sung’s textbook was indeed incredibly comprehensive; it had even handedly proved his claims of being a time traveller. Probably. Not like Havve had any way to really fact check it, but it sounded right. 

Knowing about the core made Havve pay closer attention to it.

It was hard to tell if Sung had always been like this, or if he just started now that he knew Havve knew, but he tended to keep a hand by his chest, by the light of his core. It wasn’t protective, he was sure, but more like running one’s thumbnail along the pads of their fingers. Or rubbing one’s own earlobe. A little thing, a little moment of touching one’s body, because it felt nice, the sensation was pleasant. Havve saw Sung drum his fingers against that core, rub his fingers along the perimeter, all four, the thumb running along the bottom edge only.

Havve presumed that was it, just a nervous little habit, until he saw a familiar flicker. A little bit of static, a video tape being sped through one way or another, right at Sung’s core. Havve couldn’t place where he’d seen that before.

It wasn’t until he was alone, in front of a dark screen, peering at the alternate timelines in his peripheral, that he saw it. That static, that fizz, that made his heart lurch and adrenaline spike even well after he realized it wasn’t what he expected.

He tested it, locked in the bathroom, glowering at the mirror. That circle of screens at the edge of his vision, and his reflection fizzled. Staticy, just a hint of instability. 

Sung could do the exact same thing.

Their first meeting, Sung elbow deep in Havve’s chest, he’d somehow passed this onto Havve. Like a curse, a virus. He probably didn’t even know he’d done it, that slap dash revival not something he’d tested on other people. 

It seemed to Havve that Sung had not had this same breakthrough, however. He had, what looked to be, about fifty completely different breakthroughs on something he had not so much as mentioned to Havve. Which was fine; he was busy, leaving Havve alone while he poured over the textbook, intent on fully understanding Sung from a medical standpoint.

The studying always felt redundant. Some part familiar, just review. It was just by chance, when he stretched, hands over his head, looked at one of them as he brought it down. 

A latch clicked open.

Seeing double, a very human hand and arm over his, skin a warm tone, not the sickly grey he usually was. It was like a shadow, hand going down and resting back on the page. 

Not something alternate, but a memory. 

They came, they all came, in a sudden rush. A rush of college, of grad school, getting his doctorate. 

Being his own test subject. Being assured that this would change the world, but not as quickly as he’d changed himself.

Adding all those robotic components to his body, a testament to his intelligence giving him a new found strength. He remembered the sudden change in his muscles, how strong he felt, how his own body felt light and easy to move. It was all upgrades, slow and methodical and all the testing was never ending before he finally got to do something to his own body. 

How he scorned the label of mad scientist. Made his blood boil, until he changed that, too. 

That burned like hell, he remembered.

He clenched his fist, crumpling the page; if he concentrated, shut his eyes and breathed nice and slow, he could feel the blood rush through his veins. The artificial blood. That slick, oily replacement he made, that stayed in his body when his heart was ripped out. How it burned again now, going through that clicking heart Sung put in, not as sophisticated, not as  _ good  _ as what he made. It was dragging the whole system down. 

Of course Sung couldn’t have done it as well as Havve could; Havve built himself from the inside out, understood every single part because he made it, calibrated it just so, customized to his every whim and need.

As much as Sung skirted around it, someone else made him. He had to understand himself after the fact, putting together a puzzle while staring down the picture of it. 

Havve cut every single piece himself, then painted a masterpiece on top. Not to keep himself alive, to create some new life, but just for the sake of being better. Best in the world.

Sung next to him, he felt confident upgrading that to best in the universe. 

He smoothed out the page, mentally apologizing for almost tearing it out. Shut the book, stood up. Everything about himself, how he worked, had come back. It came back from buzzing around his mind, a thick sheet over everything, now clear as his own ocular lenses. 

He smiled, remembered how he wanted to name everything something over-the-top, overly scientific, too much latin. Reigning himself in when he caught himself making flashcards to remember all the ridiculous names he’d made up. 

Sung was in his own quarters, bent over his desk, over some screen, and Havve placed the textbook next to him, no need for it any longer. Put his hand on Sung’s shoulder, squeezed. That was all it took to keep Sung alive. With his mind back, he was all he needed to keep himself going.

How lucky, that two perfectly designed beings came together. 

Smug that he knew everything possible about Sung, Havve forgot about the one thing he knew about him without needing to be told; his mood, his motivations, his ver personality it seemed, would flip suddenly, and it was just about time for Sung to get a burst of energy again.

It was perfect timing, Havve just realizing that usually, in parallel and previous timelines,  there were more people involved. His memories from other timelines weren’t his and understandably shaky, but he was sure of there being more people around. 

Bouncing around the cockpit, the ship, his quarters, voice quick yet thoughts quicker, demanding Havve keep up with all of them and him, Sung declared he’d  _ seen something _ . Something, that made him look for Havve. Knew him when he saw him. A sort of vision of the future, but, Sung whipped around suddenly, Havve almost crashing into him, tripping right over.

“You can’t chase the future.”

And Sung turned and continued, telling of this  _ peek _ into another timeline, and he wanted it, and he was going to make that timeline his. He’d seen Havve in it, seen others, and he’d been seeking them all out since then. 

He seemed to be pacing as he explained. Havve wondered if he could just stand in the middle of his route and catch the gist of his explanation. 

“Do you know what I love, Havve Hogan?” He was only just getting out of breath.

“Not at all,” Havve answered honestly. He could have joked ‘the sound of your own voice’ but his curiosity got the best of him, and a joke might not’ve satisfied it. 

“Music,” Sung said, finally stopping. A door next to his quarters that Havve realized he’d never opened. No markings on the door, nothing special. He assumed it was a closet. An almost en suite. Sung unlocked the door and Havve stood too close behind him as he slid it open. 

A music studio. Drums, guitars, keyboards. An assortment of things, instruments, smaller ones hanging off the walls. All different shapes, things Havve didn’t even recognize.

“I didn’t just see us all and that was it, you know,” Sung explained as he walked into the room. Havve followed, idly walked towards the drums. “We were in a band.”

Havve almost said they always were, but bit his tongue. Sung wouldn’t know that. Right? He had no idea what Havve was, how he came to be here. So he nodded, ran his finger along the edge of a cymbal. 

“Instead of a heart, you have a drum machine, Havve.” He was breathless, like this was a revelation, a breakthrough. “You can keep perfect time.”

“I always could,” Havve replied, tongue too quick for his mind. “You didn’t give me that.” Bitter, but Sung didn’t seem to catch that, too wrapped up in his own mind. He all but flew over to Havve, grabbed his arm above the elbow.

“Perfect!” Shaking Havve, should’ve been too loud. “So, I need you to play these-” hand gesturing to the drums, then back grabbing Havve, “-and I’m just self taught, so I don’t know much, but I’m sure we can find-”

“I already know how,” Havve cut him off. He knew that. He couldn’t pull it up, didn’t remember, but the muscles in his arms told him he knew this. A very loud muscle memory, something he was good at that he didn’t work his whole life to get good at.

Only half his life.

Sung grinned, tried to spin Havve around but he stood firm. He explained the rest of this vision, this sneak peek, explaining these strangers that Havve already knew.

He didn’t explain his plan to find them until much later.

Much later, because he didn’t have a plan. Havve was the plan, because all Sung knew was that once he found one person, one member of this possible band, then the rest of them had to come together. 

They had to, he’d say. 

They had to find the others, he kept repeating, a point of comfort. All their aimless wandering through the universe, and all Sung had to say about it was that they’d find the others. Everything would line up, and it would all be right.

Havve’s voice started malfunctioning, and he told himself everything would be fine and he could fix himself and they’d find the others.

He finally went to Sung for help, started clinging just as desperately to the idea of someone else as Sung did. 

When his voice completely broke down, Sung still assured him things would be fine. He’d fix it, find a work around- he always did, he’d fixed Havve once before, what was one more body part?

Havve, a fool, trusted Sung. He had no other choice.

He really couldn’t be angry that Sung couldn’t save his voice. It was a fair trade off, like the rest of him. Before this, back home, he certainly wasn’t going to win any beauty pageants, but he was strong and nothing could hurt him. He couldn’t speak anymore, sure, but every upgrade had it’s setbacks.

This was a more traditional upgrade, hardware added. Like upgrading his blood, there was a sudden overwhelming feeling. This one wasn’t physical, however; as soon as it was on, integrating with his system, he was plunged into Sung’s mind, this swirl of emotions suddenly surrounding him. All the pain of his own work only ever made him grit his teeth, hold his breath. This was new, this was something he’d had a hint at, and he would’ve screamed if he’d been able to. 

Suddenly privy to Sung’s anxiety, he let it take hold. If Sung was sure this connection, these frail little microchips, were stable, then Havve was sure as well. They had to be something they could rely on because apparently, Havve couldn’t trust his own body anymore.

Sung’s assurance, just like all the ones before it must’ve been, was filled to the brim with false hope. For himself, to make himself feel better as he said it, not Havve as he heard it. And he knew, gave Havve this tight forced smile with it, pulled him into a one armed hug. 

Nothing else to do but foolishly trust Sung again. 

After that, was their break. A spike in Sung’s mood. It had been so long, Havve thought that cycle was over, had changed. 

Again, he was greeted with this sudden glee. Elation. Sung waving him over, pointing to something on a holo screen. He’d seen something, in another timeline, something like this, and he knew this was the path to the others. 

There was a flicker in Havve’s peripheral. Something changed, but he couldn’t pick out what. 

Sung explained his grand plan, skipping out details then jumping back to them, telling it all to Havve out of order. 

He was a flurry, barely needed Havve to co-pilot, destination decided. His core brighter than ever, fuzzy, constantly double checking somewhere for something. 

They approached this planet, and he gave Havve some kind of a history lesson on it. When he had the time to learn this himself, Havve had no idea. He didn’t much care, the constant flickering and, he eventually realized, disappearance of timelines far more interesting to Havve. 

In which ‘interesting’ is synonymous with ‘stomach-churning’. 

Landing on the planet, timelines fell away. Sung started prepping the cockpit to detach into a small, faster ship, more options left them. Havve hounded him, if he was sure, if this was really it, and every assurance Sung gave, another screen flickered off. 

Havve didn’t let up because he was convinced, but he let Sung think that. Who knew what arguing about it would do. 

Sung left, and Havve glared into the sky after him. Stuck on this silly planet, Earth, with it’s humanity, and he couldn’t even feel the breeze blowing past the ship. Couldn’t be soothed by these simple pleasures, not anymore. 

Still, he stayed outside as long as he could. The sky gave him something to focus on, yet still allowed him to cross his eyes a little, let everything get blurry. Pretend everything was fine.

Pretend he was home, on the verge of changing the world.

* * *

 

The worst part about waiting in the empty ship, was how alone it made him feel. How all those years in that cave were echoing around him now, and it brought up that old anxiety, that this was it, he’d be alone for as long as he could comprehend, and then a little longer.

And then the communicator would ping, and Havve would rush back over to the makeshift command center to see what Sung had sent him, excited for even an automatic location update, over the moon for an actual message, even if they were just confirmations he was still kicking. A different anxiety would overtake Havve, and it wasn’t his. Sung’s emotions came tumbling through the- he couldn’t pinpoint it, really, if it was the comm system, the hardware linking them, if he just knew Sung well enough now to pinpoint exactly how he was feeling from a few words, a glimpse of half his face. Whatever it was, he felt the weight of Sung’s desires on his shoulders, breaking his back. He’d been feeling it for a long time, didn’t even realise he was free of it until he got it back in those brief moments.

Sung was a man possessed on this mission, someone Havve didn’t truly recognize; his core personality and goals had never really shifted from timeline to timeline, but this one had, and it felt wrong. Sick, almost.

He had tunnel vision, he had no idea Havve could see plenty of other viable options too. That this one was just… awry. Off kilter. The more Sung dragged them down it, the more bent he became to fit it. It truly enraged Havve, nothing had sparked his anger like this in a long time, how blind Sung was. He was ignoring everything, he was stubborn, and Havve just let him go. How could he tell Sung he saw what would happen if he did this? That, as soon as he departed, Havve saw a million other options fall away, like leaves off a tree, the only other things at the edge of his vision were just as bad as what laid ahead. 

Ever little update, one or two more would fade away, that oh so familiar flicker. Time shifting. When Sung stopped, the first of two before his final heroic sweep, Havve asked him. A vague, leading question. After asking for his location, status, telling Sung how long it had been from Havve’s static position. Typed out, thoughtful, he’d been thinking about how to phrase it since Sung left.

_ Are you sure about all of this? You really think it’s the right Time for this? _

And of course Sung was sure. He’d never been more sure. Everything was looking up, everything was falling into place, there’s no need to worry because--

“Don’t you trust me by now, Havve?”

Ice ran through Havve’s veins, and he dropped the subject. He didn’t like that tone, didn’t like how it made, for the first time in a long time, a new possibility flicker up. 

It went away too, eventually. They all did. Until this timeline was less like being trapped in a tunnel, and more like dangling off a cliff.

He could see it, see it all, crystal clear yet getting darker and darker. Sung tumbling like a pebble, hitting the sheer rock face and bouncing off, scrambling to grab onto anything to break the fall but it all just crumbled and broke away. There was no stopping this path now, like there was no stopping gravity.

Havve had said all he could, and Sung had brushed him off, flippant. 

It was their last chance to talk, Sung just waiting for the signal he needed, one last thing to kick it all off. Havve gave some token effort, but he didn’t even know what he was trying to change at this point. Now he was locked in, on the path to the ending.

Havve went against his own better judgement. Told Sung he had some notification going on his end, knew exactly what it was. His hands moved mechanically as he typed, not really his own power. He looked up as soon as he finished typing, knew there was some lag.

He watched Sung sit up suddenly, looked at something he didn’t really read, grinned.

Havve thought it looked hollow. 

The ship powered up, Havve could hear it over the comm, almost completely covering up what Sung said; “We’ll be seeing you soon, Havve.”

The screen clicked off, a static fizzle Havve could taste. He reached up, shutting off the screen and killing the buzz of stand-by, and then slumped back in his seat. 

They were always constant for him in every timeline; the static, and the quiet. He thought he’d escaped that, that he’d found the secret answer, the correct place to be and he’d never be plagued by that again. But it returned, taunting him, taunting him about how it would never return after this and he’d be stuck with the horrible knowledge of what was going to happen for the rest of his life. 

All that was left for him to do now was to look down this path, every bump, so far off it became blue-shifted, tinged by atmosphere, and ruminate in it. Feel every coming hurt, regret, flashes of faces he didn’t recognize, remembering future feelings of just being sorry.

A vision of sorts, out of body, a rapid flashing forward to far too many instances of merely standing by Sung with every scrape against the cliff face, benignly standing by as Sung plotted a track that made Havve’s stomach churn. 

There was nothing else he could do, no more other streams hovering around. No static. No rips between streams, no threats of anyone, himself or otherwise, threatening to take his place. 

But if that were to happen again, just once more, he hoped the will of God was aiding their victory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you for reading

**Author's Note:**

> next two chapters coming some time this week. please let me know what you think!!


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